Reconfiguraciones de la identidad trans* en territorios de la espera

Abstract

Regional migration policies have led to the formation of what Musset calls waiting territories, with Tenosique in southern Mexico being a notable example. Waiting should not be understood as a passive space-time. In this paper, I analyze what takes place within this waiting territory during the migratory experience of Nikki, originally from Honduras, who arrived in 2018 with her mother seeking international protection. Bureaucratic measures of border externalization interrupted their transit and caused them to wait several months at La 72, a migrant shelter, between 2018 and 2019. Nikki began her migration with a masculine identity, although she had long desired a feminine identity. Through an affective ethnography and other qualitative techniques, I explore the reflective and material processes related to Nikki's desired feminine identity as a result of her experience in a waiting territory. The aim is to deepen the understanding of social relations and intersubjectivity woven into the time-space of waiting.